Ensuring that her research contributes to society’s well-being is a major driving force for Jennifer Rupp. “Even if my work is fundamental, I want to think about how it can be useful for society,” says Rupp, the Thomas Lord Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Since joining the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in February 2017, she has been focusing not only on the basics of ceramics processing techniques but also on how to further develop those techniques to design new practical devices as well as materials with novel structures. Her current research applications range from battery-based storage for renewable energy, to energy-harvesting systems, to devices used to store data during computation.